


What About Eurus?

by LondonLioness



Series: The Experience Verse [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fix-It of Sorts, Frustrated by TFP? This is your fic!, Mental Health Issues, More permutations from Sherlock's Experience, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Search for Reality, Yep...I'm tackling Eurus!, aspie!sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23730130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LondonLioness/pseuds/LondonLioness
Summary: "Brother Mine, please come in."I stood as Sherlock entered my office at the Diogenes Club. It had been six months since his precognitive Experience, but the marks of the trauma were all too clear."How goes the therapy?" I asked. "Does this visit mean you've forgiven me?""Forgiven?" he echoed. He fumbled for a cigarette to buy time. "Mycroft, I understand it was never your intent to cause me harm, but that Experience..." He trembled slightly, taking a long drag. "I remember you saying as the effect dissipates, it shifts to the unconscious mind, producing dreamlike ... or in my case, nightmarish... imagery. I need your help to sort it out."Of course, I would help him any way I could.
Series: The Experience Verse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1513652
Comments: 72
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is easily the most self-indulgent fic I've ever written. That S4...well, I concentrate mostly on TFP, although a bit of TLD makes it in here as well. Everything that made me say, "huh?", everything that made me scream at the screen...I take it on. I don't just dissect it, I eviscerate it. And then jump up and down on it howling with glee. So to the frustrated, the bewildered, the bewuthered, I say: here be your fic! And if you don't fall into those categories, that's OK; I think it's a pretty good fic regardless.
> 
> This is part 4 of the Experience verse. It should stand alone, but if you get confused, you may want to read "Do-Over, Done Over." Basically, Sherlock experienced the years 2010-2015 as a precognitive vision; so I pretty much toss everything past TBB.
> 
> OK, make sure your personal protective equipment is in good repair, because we're going down the rabbit hole here! Deep breath, and down we go!

"Brother mine, please come in." 

I stood as Sherlock entered my office at the Diogenes Club and made his way to one of the comfortable leather armchairs that grace the room. I cast a quick deductive eye over him as he did so. It had been six months since his precognitive Experience, but the marks of the trauma were all too evident. There were new stress lines around his eyes and as he entered, his eyes swept all corners of the room: hypervigilance, a symptom of PTSD. 

"How goes the therapy?" I asked. Does this visit mean that you've forgiven me?" 

"Forgiven?" he echoed. He fumbled for a cigarette, a transparent ploy to buy time. "I do understand it was never your intent to cause me harm, but Mycroft, that Experience..." He trembled slightly, but visibly, taking a long drag. "That business at the end...I remember you saying that as the effect dissipates, it shifts to the unconscious mind, producing dreamlike imagery. Or, in my case, nightmarish. We know some of it was accurate: Eurus exists, Sherrinford exists, Victor's bones were found in the well -- but big pieces of it don't make sense. What was real and what was fantasy? That's what I need you to help me sort out." 

Of course I would help him however I could. "Tell me what you remember." 

He frowned, concentrating. "I have very few clear recollections of Eurus as a child. My memories of Victor are far more vivid." There was a wistfulness when he said Victor's name that made me realise he attached quite a bit of sentiment to this memory. _Oh, my dear baby brother. These memories truly have cracked your heart wide open, haven't they?_ Sherlock continued, "I do have one clear memory. A day on the beach; you, me, Eurus, and Victor. Eurus was playing with a toy airplane, and she kept begging me to play with her. Of course, Victor and I didn't want to play with a _girl."_ This fond reminiscence got a lopsided grin. "I know you remember that day; you have a home movie of it." 

"No, I don't," I contradicted. 

"You do; I saw you..." He stopped, blinking. "Wait, I couldn't have seen that. I was in an entirely different part of the house." 

"You couldn't have seen it anyway; it doesn't exist. Even if it did, do you truly imagine I would indulge in sentimental home movies about our childhood?" I could see that had scored a point. "I do remember that day. If I were going to wax sentimental about a day in our childhood, it wouldn't be that one. I don't believe you remember how it ended." He shook his head. "When you continued to refuse to play with her, Eurus got violent. She threw her plane onto the sand and stomped on it, screaming that she was crashing; that she was going to crash her plane into a city and kill everybody." 

Sherlock's eyes lit with recognition. "A little girl trapped on a plane doomed to crash into a city -- yes. In my Experience, Eurus set that up as a scenario we had to solve." 

"A scenario?" 

He shook his head. "Getting ahead of myself; I want to take this in order. So she crashed her plane, and..." his eyes narrowed as he chased a fleeting thought. "She attacked me, didn't she? She was clawing at my eyes." 

I nodded, confirming it. "Father pulled her off. He _was_ filming us; you remember that correctly. But in his struggle with Eurus, the camera fell in the water. It was ruined." 

I could see more details slotting into place. "Victor tried to pull her off, too. He pulled her hair." 

"I've wondered whether that act sealed his fate. Eurus was vain about her hair." I noted the time and grimaced inwardly. "Brother mine, as fascinating as this meander down memory lane is, I have to leave for a meeting in about twenty minutes. Why don't you ask me one question you want answered and we'll arrange a meeting later to discuss the rest." 

"One question." He tipped his head back and contemplated the ceiling. "Mummy and Dad. Their actions don't make sense. I understand that I buried the trauma by telling myself a different story. I turned my best friend into a dog and edited out Eurus completely. But Mum and Dad -- they chose to let me get lost inside that delusion? There's not a scrap of evidence that Eurus ever existed. What mother loses a child -- even a child as severely disturbed as Eurus -- and doesn't keep even a single photograph? Why did my whole family support my delusion? Why wasn't there a fleet of child psychiatrists trying to guide me through processing the trauma?" 

"A full answer to that would take longer than twenty minutes," I commented. Seeing Sherlock's face shutter, I continued, "The short version is, there were no child psychiatrists because Mummy had had her fill of them. She'd had several tell her Eurus needed to be hospitalised." 

"And they were right. Surely Eurus' actions proved that. So why didn't Mummy accept that?" 

I sighed. Explaining emotion is far from my forte. "Because motherhood is more primal than logic. First, Eurus does the unthinkable. Mummy denied it, of course, but she knew. Knew Eurus had killed Victor. Now here was her little boy coming unhinged. You were frantic in your search for Victor. You dug and dug around the beech tree; you wouldn't even stop to eat. Father hid the shovels, and you used your fingernails. They resorted to locking you in your room and you beat yourself bloody against the door trying to get out. You stopped sleeping, and when you did, there were nightmares. Then came the fire, and the evidence that Eurus had tried to kill you was undeniable. Mummy lost her little girl; she was taken away. So she clung to her severely traumatised little boy, fearful you would be taken away, too. But then, suddenly, you were fine. You were sad about your dog, but no longer looking for Victor. You were eating again, playing again. When it became apparent you'd excised all memory of Eurus, they acted swiftly to prevent you learning the truth. In retrospect, it was foolish, but they wanted to spare you suffering." I glanced at my watch, none too subtly. "Are you home tonight? I can come by the flat to continue this. He nodded and exited my office with a swirl of his ridiculously dramatic coat. 

The rest of my day was tedious in the extreme. Often, goldfish are like sheep, but sometimes they're like cats, impossible to herd. I spent the entire afternoon in delicate negotiations, trying to tweak my very reluctant chessmen into their proper places on the board. After hours of these manoeuvres, I found myself looking forward to going to Baker Street. Sherlock, at least, possesses a modicum of intelligence. 

Accordingly, after a quick stop home to fetch some items, I arrived on my brother's doorstep at 7:00 P.M. I frowned at the sight of Dr. Watson bringing in tea for three. 

"Sherlock, this is a family matter," I admonished. 

"I trust John implicitly." The set of his jaw told me he wasn't going to budge on this, and after a moment's thought, I relented. Dr. Watson has proved to be a stabilising force in Sherlock's life, and he may need his support as we discussed the matter at hand. 

I took my seat and the next few minutes were filled with the clatter of cups, saucers, and spoons. Once that had settled, I said, "As to what you asked earlier: Mummy does, in fact, have a single photograph of Eurus and a lock of her hair secreted in a locket. Everything else of hers was taken by Uncle Rudy, and of course, after Rudy's death, it came to me." I hefted the stack of files and envelopes I had brought with me and laid them on the coffee table. 

Sherlock's reaction was unusual, to say the least. I'm accustomed to my impetuous little brother ripping through data at supersonic speeds, but he reached slowly for the top file, then simply held it, staring blankly. After a moment, he gave a hollow laugh. 

"I'm afraid," he admitted. "A lot of my PTSD stems from my interaction with Eurus. It was like a horror movie, Mycroft. Sadistic, surreal..." 

John reached over and squeezed Sherlock's forearm, hard. "Sherlock, mantra," he ordered. 

He blinked hard as his train of thought was derailed, then recited, "It did not happen; it will not happen." 

Watson squeezed again. "Twice more," he commanded. Sherlock obediently repeated the formula. 

A mantra? That seemed so simplistic. "Does that actually help?" I asked. 

He nodded. "It does. It helps me remember these are _false_ memories. You have no idea what this is like. Not only do I remember five years that never happened, but a lot of the information is accurate. So when something in my real life bumps up against a false memory, it's like the whole world tips sideways. I don't know where I am, or when; I don't know what's real... I've had nightmares, flashbacks..." 

"I've had to talk him down off the ceiling a couple of times," John interjected. 

"Perhaps," I suggested, "this conversation should wait until your psychiatrist can participate." 

"No." He mumbled something that sounded like "Into battle," and opened the folder. 

The first thing to greet him was a photo of Eurus, age 4. He frowned, tracing with his finger the long auburn waves that tumbled over her shoulders. 

"Hair's longer than I remember," he murmured. 

"It was cut about a week before the day at the beach you remember." 

He hummed noncommittally and flipped through a few more photos, typical childhood stuff: Eurus blowing out candles on a sweetly decorated cake; two-year-old Eurus bent over, studying a butterfly perched on a flower. (They did _not_ photograph her capturing that butterfly and pulling off its wings to figure out how they made it fly.) He paused at a picture of her in front of the blackboard we'd had in our solarium, which was filled with calculus equations. His eyebrows leapt towards his fringe when he realised this wasn't a child scribbling random symbols: _the equations made sense._

"She has one of Mummy's books open?" he hypothesised. 

"No." 

John craned his neck to see. "Christ on a crutch," he breathed. "She's what, three?" 

I nodded. 

"I remember," Sherlock gasped. "Not this specific day, but Eurus at the blackboard, trying to teach me maths. Times tables, I think." 

"She enjoyed tutoring you," I commented. 

"In my vision, she said she was the one who taught me violin," Sherlock said. 

I considered that. "An overstatement, I think. She introduced you to the instrument and showed you the very basics: how to hold it, some simple fingering exercises ... but to say she "taught you violin?" No, I think not." 

On to the next item: a child's drawing of a little boy with a mop of dark curls. The caption read, "My Sherlock." 

"That's sweet," John murmured. 

"Not when you consider she meant it literally," I clarified. " _Her_ Sherlock, to possess and use. She wanted his full attention." 

Sherlock closed the folder and leaned forward, left hand tugging at his curls. "Why can't I remember?" he moaned. "I remember so much from ages 4, 5, 6. I remember summers with Grand-mere in France. I remember Christmas when I was five. I'd got into the mince pies and wrecked my appetite for dinner. Uncle Rudy wore sequins..." 

John frowned. "Wait, what?" 

Sherlock ignored him. "I remember my presents. I got a model train and an Invisible Man. _But there's no Eurus._ How could I have edited her out so completely?" 

"You buried those memories deep. You had to." 

He tossed the folder back on the coffee table and sat back dejectedly. "It's maddening. Five years of false memories crowding my brain, and memories that should be there are missing." He studied the stack of papers, then shook his head decisively. "No. I have to take this slowly. I'm going to pick through this and pull out specific things to ask you about; that will be more efficient. Can you come back Thursday?" 

"Thursday," I agreed. 

  


Thursday dawned bright and clear, a crisp October day. The beautiful weather apparently extended even to the political climate: it was a remarkably easy day and I actually left my office a couple of hours early. I took advantage of the extra time to swing by Chez Antoinette and bring a few selections with me to Baker Street. Of the three of us, I seldom have time for a proper meal, Dr. Watson seems to subsist mostly on pub grub, and Sherlock on air. Some real food would be a treat for all of us. 

Dr. Watson, at least, seemed to agree whole-heartedly. "God, that smells amazing," he exclaimed and jumped up with alacrity to pull together plates and cutlery. Sherlock's eyes lit up at the sight of the petit fours I had brought for dessert, and I smacked his hand away as I handed him his soup, a velvety vichyssoise. We tucked in and half an hour lager, sat back with sighs of contentment. 

"That was delicious," John opined. "Thank you, Mycroft." I could see him nudge my brother with his foot. 

"What?" Sherlock snapped. "The least he could do is feed me once in a while." 

John rolled his eyes and cleared dishes away while Sherlock excavated a file from the rubble by the sofa. John rejoined us as Sherlock teased out a report printed on old-fashioned green and white computer paper. "Psychometrics," he read. "I remember this testing," he remarked. "I hated it. You loved it." I didn't deny it; I've always enjoyed puzzles and tests. "Eurus I don't remember being there, but here are her results." He frowned at the report. "A literally incalculable IQ. An era-defining genius, beyond Einstein, beyond Newton." 

"Quite," I agreed. 

"So that was accurate." He set down the report and laid out five photographs, all candid shots of us three. To the casual observer, there was nothing remarkable about them, but then Sherlock pointed to my image: in each one, I was physically between the two younger children. "That is not an accident," he stated. 

"No." I had run a great deal of interference in those days. "She was sly. She'd pinch you or scratch you when Mummy and Dad weren't looking. Worse, she would whisper to you. Tell you to do things that would get you in trouble. When I reminded you that you didn't have to do what she said, you said it was like an earworm; that it just stayed in your mind until you acted on it." 

Sherlock's eyes widened. "That was in my Experience. Only instead of child Eurus whispering to me, it was adult Eurus whispering to a guard that he should kill his family and himself. Which he did." 

John frowned, disbelief writ large on his face. "What, because he was _told_ to?" 

Sherlock nodded. "Mycroft said..." John reached over and squeezed his forearm. He rephrased, " _In my Experience,_ Mycroft told me she was able to ... reprogram people." 

Now it was my turn to frown. "Reprogram? You make her sound like one of those science fiction mutants. Eurus' great gift is to see patterns. Were such a thing to happen, I submit to you those thought patterns already would have existed in that guard; Eurus would merely have ... teased them out." An analogy presented itself. "She's much like a tiger trainer. The best trainers never ask the animal to do anything it wouldn't do naturally. Running, jumping, pouncing ... all very tigerish activities. A good trainer takes the tiger just a single step beyond where it would usually go; then, when the animal is comfortable, a single step past that, and so on. In time, the beast is performing the most fantastic routines." I studied the photographs pensively. "Eurus never had you do anything egregious. She always took you just a single step beyond where your natural mischief would have taken you anyway. But had she been given free rein, I shudder to think where she could have eventually led you, step by step." 

Sherlock nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense, only... Moriarty." 

"Who?" John asked. 

"Criminal," Sherlock answered shortly. Addressing me: "Your Christmas present to her ... this past Christmas, if I have this figured right... was an unsupervised conversation with Moriarty. That conversation unleashed..." Squeeze. " _In my Experience,_ I foresaw that conversation unleashing years of hell on us. How could she orchestrate that in only five minutes unless she had some extraordinary ability?" 

"Five minutes? Sherlock, they had an hour together." I could see that this rocked him back on his heels. "Your unconscious seems to have confabulated her into some sort of super villain. Your psychiatrist must find it very interesting." 

"Super villain," he echoed. Suddenly, he guffawed. "God, you have no idea -- the things she did --!" 

"Mantra!" John barked. But Sherlock was well past that; the laughter turning into a strangled whoop as he tried and failed to catch his breath. John was in front of him instantly, speaking softly and urgently, trying to coach him into breathing more coherently. 

"What can I do?" I asked. 

"Leave," Watson replied tersely. 

Sherlock shook his head vigourously. "Nuh - No!" 

Another squeeze on the forearm. There was going to be a bruise there tomorrow. "Remember the guidelines Dr. McAree worked out with us. When I say you're done, you're done. When you go to therapy tomorrow, you tell him all about this, and decide where to go from here, yeah?" Sherlock nodded, head still bowed. He was drawing breath easier, but still shaking, and there were definitely tear tracks on his cheeks. _Brother mine, what did I do to you?_ My heart in my shoes, I saw myself out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a shorter chapter this time. That first one was so long because I had it in my head this was going to be a one-shot, and that's where I cried Uncle! There is so much to unpack in S4, the chapter count ballooned to 8 before I could get it all down. 
> 
> This chapter, I tackle a piece of TST that always bugged me. Please enjoy.

At this point, I feel I must speak in my own defence. It was never my intention to inflict such distress on Sherlock. I need not appeal to sentiment; my actions provide plenty of evidence that I care deeply for my brother. The Baskerville project had been ongoing for three years, and in that time, extensive animal and human testing had been conducted. Based on these results, expectations were that, for an indeterminate period, Sherlock would experience precognitive dreams, visions, and/or flashes of insight. Alas, my brother's brain is atypical even amongst the atypical, and in a single night, he "lived" five years of a possible future -- a dangerous, difficult future which left him with deep mental scars. 

And now I am going to destroy whatever goodwill I've just built up by saying I would do it again. The intel we received from Sherlock's Experience was detailed and far-reaching. Because of it, we were able to shut down a number of criminal enterprises across the globe, prevent terrorist attacks, put away a serial killer, a traitor, a blackmailer, even ascertain the fate of a missing child of our acquaintance. For all his pain, Sherlock has not been physically harmed, and it seems he's actually learned some things from his Experience. His previous reaction to such emotional distress would have been to dive into a syringe. This time, he asked for help. Not only is he seeing a psychiatrist, he's diligently working the programme. He's also unashamedly leaning on his friends for support. Dr. Watson, Gregory, Dr. Hooper, and Mrs. Hudson have all rallied around him. Every one of them have remarked on the added depth of humanity he exhibits these days. Therefore, on the risk/benefit equation I believe the scales tip strongly to "benefit". Dismayed though I am at the anguish it's caused, if one is the price of the other, then so be it. 

Having said that, it was with no little anxiety I awaited word from Sherlock. I had seen him overwrought before, of course; as a child, he had had spectacular meltdowns. But the sight of tears on his cheeks -- well. At least he had his doctor close at hand. 

I had just about convinced myself all was well when, three days later, I got a phone call from Sherlock, asking me to visit him at a specific time the next day. 

Not at the flat. At a psychiatric hospital. 

Had it been so dire, then? Had what I thought to be a simple panic attack segued into a break with reality? Had my carelessness been responsible for crippling my little brother's beautiful mind? Some of this must have shown on my face when I went to see him, because he greeted me with one of his patented eye rolls. 

"Oh, for--" he scoffed. "I'm fine. McAree just wants me closely monitored while they tweak my meds." 

"Meds?" This was a surprise. Casual as Sherlock was about street drugs, he'd always been resistant to the idea of prescription medications. 

"Antidepressant, anxiolytic, as needed sleep scrip, and some industrial strength vitamins. According to John, that's what happens when a grown man eats like a picky toddler." He was skirting some issue, and now he came to it. "The antidepressant had a ... side effect." 

I understood immediately. If awards were granted for irony, surely the grand prize would go to suicidal ideation being a side effect of antidepressants. "You didn't...?" 

"I didn't," he affirmed. "But it was a near thing. I was actually fashioning a hangman's noose when Lestrade came by with a case file. As soon as he saw me, he knew something was wrong. The more I tried to shove him out the door, the more he stuck to my side, until I finally confessed what was going on. He called John, John called McAree, and..." his gesture encompassed the room. "Here I am, enjoying the accommodations at Chez Lunatic." 

"I have asked you not to call it that," came a reedy voice behind me, and I turned to see a thin, bespectacled man of average height, with thinning brown hair. Sherlock did the honours: 

"Dr. McAree, my brother, Mycroft Holmes." 

"Mr. Holmes." His handshake was firm and his manner crisp and professional. I decided to like him on a provisional basis. "Has your brother explained why we asked you here?" 

I shook my head. "So far, we've only discussed why he's here, not me." 

"Yes, well." McAree indicated I should sit, and drew up a chair himself. "Your brother's situation is unique. Not only do we have five years of false memories to process, but the false memories have enabled him to recover repressed memories. To add another wrinkle, the repressed memories were uncovered toward the end of the Experience, so they seem to have been subjected to significant confabulation. In other words, his unconscious mind took kernels of facts and ... ran with them, combining them with fantasies, exaggerations, bizarre imagery, etc. So our task now is to tease out that core of reality and lay to rest the fantasy that's entwined with it." 

Sherlock added, "I'm not sure exactly where the confabulation begins, but I'm positive it was well underway by the time Mary died." 

"Mary?" I inquired. 

"Rosamund of AGRA. In my Experience, John married her. We knew her under the alias Mary Morstan." Which made sense; she was, in fact, in the process of establishing that identity for herself when my agents caught up to her. "She was shot by Vivian Norbury." 

"That does not seem at all unlikely," I rejoined. Among the intel Sherlock brought back from his Experience was the fact that Ms. Norbury was responsible for the debacle in Tsibli. Of course there would be bad blood between the two women. "Why do say it was confabulated?" 

"Because of the way she died," Sherlock explained. "In contravention of the laws of physics, the bullet flung her backwards, with great gouts of blood pouring out. And yet, she retained enough strength and breath to deliver a lengthy, impassioned farewell speech. With that type of wound, she should have been incapable of anything beyond a strangled gargle while pink froth poured from her lips. But no, it was a beautiful death. Beatific. You could almost hear the angels sing. 

"And John -- John did _nothing!_ Granted, there's a moment of shock when it's a loved one, but still, you'd expect his training to kick in at some point. He never even opened her clothes to assess the wound. He never tried to stop the bleeding; never made any resuscitation attempts. He just cuddled her and cried." He snorted and rolled his eyes. "I'm rather ashamed of my mind for conjuring such a thing. John wouldn't act like that." 

"It seems to me," I offered, "as if a likely scenario were overlaid with a number of tropes culled from "B" movies. The violent gunshot, the beautiful death, the husband prostrate with grief ... I've seen this movie a dozen times. But, Sherlock: you saw the laws of physics being broken right before your eyes and you didn't stop to think something wasn't right?" 

My little brother shrugged a bit defensively. "It was a dream, but not a lucid dream. You know how it is in dreams: you find you can fly, or a tree starts talking to you, and you just accept it." 

"I wouldn't know," I mused. "All my dreams are lucid." I could see McAree's surprise at that assertion, but he didn't pursue it. I added, "So I'm here to help Sherlock sort out kernels of truth from confabulation?" 

"Exactly," McAree agreed. It may take several sessions, and Sherlock tells me you're quite busy, but I hope you'll make time for Sherlock to relate his Experience to you as regards Eurus. I believe your commentary could go a long way toward helping him process it." 

"I'll help as much as I can," I affirmed. 

"Very good," McAree beamed. "Sherlock?" 

My brother rolled his eyes. "Must I?" He didn't wait for an answer, though. "Never mind, I know." He heaved a sigh and recited: "I am about to relate a dream. Some aspects of the dream may reflect reality, but the events I'm going to recount did not happen, nor will they." 

"And?" the doctor prompted. 

"And if told to stop, I will do so without hesitation or argument." 

"Excellent." 

"Yes. Well." Sherlock favoured me with a tight smile. "Down the rabbit hole we go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know many fans have commented on how Mary's death contradicts what we learned about getting shot in HLV (and Mythbusters). I mean, erk, you know better, and you made a point to tell us, so we know better too. It's almost disrespectful. It makes me sad, so I'm just going to pretend they were going to fix it in S5, but circumstances prevented them doing that.
> 
> Kudos and comments make me sparkle! You want me to sparkle, don't ya?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get into TFP properly. A few ponderables come to light.

"We became aware of Eurus because she was posing as John's new therapist," Sherlock began. "After a few sessions, she identified herself as my sister, shot John with a tranquiliser dart, and disappeared. My first reaction was to dismiss her as a deranged fan..." 

"A _fan_?" 

"Er, yes." My brother squirmed a bit, uncomfortably. "Between John's blog and a couple of high-profile cases, I'd garnered a bit of fame. But the name 'Eurus' brought me up short. Eurus, the East Wind. Who but us knew of that? So, John and I decided to confront you." His lips quirked at that; something about this confrontation amused him. I decided I didn't want to know. "After some persuasion--" that smile again-- "you explained to us the basics about Eurus: that she was a year younger than I; that she was an era-defining genius, and that she was severely disturbed. You told us a story about how she cut open her own arm to see her muscles work, and how she didn't understand what pain was." 

"Yes," I confirmed. "That part was true." 

He nodded, unsurprised. "You described Redbeard's disappearance, although at that point, you were maintaining the fiction that Redbeard was a dog. You mentioned how Eurus would taunt me with that song: _I who am lost..."_

"Yes, that song." The song had been the cruelest thing Eurus ever did; holding out hope that if Sherlock could solve the riddle, he could find Victor. "Hope is cruel," I said. "She made you hope with it, but of course, it was meaningless." 

"No, it wasn't. I solved it." He preened a bit at my expression of incredulity. "The code was based on the dates on the gravestones." 

McAree frowned at that. "Gravestones?" 

"They weren't real gravestones," my little brother explained. "The dates didn't make sense: death dates before birth dates, impossibly long lifespans; that sort of thing. Mycroft described them as an architectural joke." 

Now it was my turn to frown. "A joke?" What kind of ghoulish joke would be a fake cemetery on the grounds of an elegant estate, such as Musgrave had been? "Those were Halloween decorations, Sherlock. You and Victor hauled them out of the shed and set them up so you could act out some fantasy you were concocting about being pirates on a haunted island." 

"Oh. That makes sense, I guess..." His eyes widened; I could _see_ a memory shoulder its way forward. "Plastic. They were plastic. Thin, fragile things. Victor and I tore one trying to wiggle it out of a tight spot. How could they still be there after so many years?" 

"Be where?" 

"In the yard, in front of the ruins." 

"Ruins?" What kind of gothic fantasy had his mind conjured? "Sherlock, remember the neighbourhood we grew up in. You can't imagine a burnt-out hulk would be allowed to moulder for decades on end." 

He went pale and very still. McAree reached over and clasped his forearm the way I had seen John do. "Sherlock, blow out. Empty your lungs. Do it now." He complied, and on command, inhaled. "Hold for five...one, two, three, four, five... release. One more deep breath. Better?" 

He nodded, having regained some colour. "I've just found a major disconnect. The tail end of my Experience happened in the ruins of Musgrave Hall... ruins that don't exist. But you found the well." 

I agreed, "Yes, on the east side of the house as you described, although rather distant from the house itself. In the original estate, it would have been convenient to the servants' quarters. Those were demolished in the 1930's." 

"So the house was razed after the fire?" 

"And a lovely, modern new home built on the site. But we never lived in it; Mummy and Dad had too many memories oppressing them in that place. They sold the estate and we moved into the new house." 

"Right, I remember the move. Only... if Musgrave burned... those papers and photos you showed me should have burned, too." 

"No mystery there," I assured him. "As she does to this day, Mummy kept any papers she considered valuable in a strongbox. It survived the fire quite handily." 

"Of course." He went quiet; I could see him organising the newly acquired information. "This is good, Mycroft: things are gaining some clarity. We ought to get back to the chronological retelling, though." 

"By all means." 

"Well... as we were discussing all this, we heard a window break and a drone came into the room." He tilted his head, considering. "Huh. It must have been a tight fit, if it would fit at all. And we wouldn't leave the door open so it could come into the sitting room..." He huffed in exasperation. "It sounds like there's quite a bit of confabulation at this point." 

"No doubt," McAree agreed, "but for the sake of recounting the dream, let us simply accept that a drone came into the room. Then what happened?" 

Sherlock picked up his narrative. "Eurus' song was coming from the drone, and it was carrying an object you identified as a patience grenade. Does it exist yet?" 

"I'm not clear on what that is," I told him. 

Sherlock shuddered a bit at the memory. "It's a devilish little device. Once armed, a motion sensor is activated, and the slightest move will set it off. Hence, the need for patience." 

I turned over that idea in my head. "I fail to see the utility of such a thing." 

My brother blinked in confusion. "Surely there are times when you wish to immobilise your enemy rather than kill them." 

"Granted, but a drone that can deliver a patience grenade can also deliver a conventional stun grenade, or a device for dispersing anaesthetic gas. Not to mention, to be effective at immobilising one's quarry, it would need to be instantly recognizable. One wonders if we would take out an advert on the world wide web: 'Dear terrorists and miscreants...' " Sherlock snorted at that, and I made my final point: "And then, the fatal flaw: once you have your enemy immobilised, then what? You yourself cannot approach without setting off the grenade. If you disarm it while you move in, your enemy has a window of opportunity. It's completely impractical." 

Sherlock sighed, seeing a bit deflated. "I see that now. But -- on with the story. We three were standing, frozen in place by the patience grenade. You were close to the door; John and I were each in front of the windows that front the street. We could hear Mrs. Hudson downstairs hoovering. We decided that when she went to put the vacuum away, she would be at the point in her flat farthest from the blast, and that's when we would make our move." He shot a glare at me, perhaps expecting me to pick apart his math. But the reasoning seemed sound, so I kept my peace. "We had only three seconds, so John and I didn't quite clear the windows before the blast hit. Fortunately, the awning over Speedy's broke our fall..." He stopped short, blinking rapidly. He didn't need big brother for this one. "That's impossible, isn't it? To hit the awning, we would have had to drop straight down. The force of the blast would have pushed us into the street. We would have had serious injuries; a few broken bones at least. But we just dusted ourselves off, then you came around the corner with Mrs. Hudson. She was shaken but unhurt, and you..." his eyes widened with realisation. "You were pristine. Not a scratch, not a smudge, not a hair out of place. He laughed ruefully, scrubbing his hands over his face. "Omigod, this wasn't just a dream, it was a _cartoon_!" How could I not have seen?" 

McAree leaned forward intently. "Dream imagery, Sherlock. By its nature, it's illogical and incoherent. But think it through, now: what truth do you think might lie underneath all this confabulation about a patience grenade?" 

My brother floundered a bit, then he said slowly, "That Eurus existed, and were she free, she would seek our attention. Dramatically. She would try to draw us into her game." 

I found myself nodding along. "That sounds like truth."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think, like most viewers, I simply accepted the patience grenade at first. Then, when I started thinking about this episode in depth, I was like, "Wait a minute..." Mofftiss, when you've got something where the more you think, the less sense it makes, it's probably not a good thing.
> 
> Kudos and comments are cream in my coffee!


	4. Chapter 4

A rather intense crisis kept me unavailable for over a week after this. If there is one regret I have over this precognitive business, it's that we couldn't brief Sherlock on things to look for. True to form, he had paid no attention whatever to world events. When I pressed him for something so basic as the identity of our next PM, he offered hesitantly it might be someone called "Brecksett", as he had started hearing that name quite a bit. Alas, my considerable resources can find no trace of such a person. But I digress. 

Sherlock had been released a few days after our meeting, so I saw him again at Baker Street. Upon entering, my attention was drawn to the far wall, where Sherlock had posted a montage of photographs. They were printouts of our childhood photos, but they'd been enlarged and cropped strangely, some showing just eyes, others halves of faces. Disturbing, to say the least. Sherlock saw me approaching them and waved me away. 

"Nope, we'll get to that later. Sit, sit." He all but manhandled me into a chair but he himself did not sit, whirling away to pace in a tight circle, then bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was clearly in one of his more manic moods, almost vibrating out of his skin. And that meant... 

"Sherlock, look me in the eye!" I barked. His head snapped around and I could clearly see his pupils looked fine. Still... 

My brother laughed delightedly. "John!" he sang out. "He thinks I'm high!" 

"Smart man," came the rejoinder as Dr. Watson joined us, carrying a tray which held tea and chocolate digestives. " _I_ thought you were high." He caught my eye. "I actually had him pee in a cup. He's clean." 

"Then this mood is...?" 

"Joy. I guess." He sat down then and leaned forward, eyes dancing. "Mycroft: _I remember Eurus!_ I ate so many mince pies that Christmas because she was sneaking them to me. And at the dinner table, she looked Uncle Rudy right in the eye and asked him for his take on the psychosexual dynamics of cross-dressing. I couldn't' understand why the table got so quiet." 

"So you remember that Christmas. Good." 

"No. I remember _everything._ " He flounced back in his seat, but sprang back up almost immediately. "I think it was remembering the truth about the gravestones that opened the floodgates. I kept remembering more and more of that summer, playing with Victor. We really were inseparable. Mummy was over the moon I had a friend, and Eurus was spitting nails. Come to think of it, Victor and I may have been a little mean to her sometimes, the thoughtless kind of mean little boys get. We wanted to paly our game; we didn't want to play hers" He sat and claimed a cuppa, but he didn't drink it right away, staring into its depths for a minute. When he looked up, his expression was much more sombre. "I remember the fire." 

"Ah." I could wish he hadn't; how traumatic to remember your sister had tried to kill you. I said as much, but Sherlock waved off my concern. 

"I already knew she'd done it, because you told me so in my precognitive vision. But of course, the actual memory is much more vivid." He set down his untouched tea, but not before I saw the slight tremour in his hands. This memory was affecting him more than he let on. "I remember the smell of smoke. When I touched the doorknob, it was blazing hot. I figured that meant the fire was right outside the door, so I went to the window, but I couldn't open it. She must have glued it shut. While I was wrestling with it, Dad appeared on the other side on a ladder. He couldn't open it either, so he told me to put on my shoes and get under my blanket. Then he broke the window and we got out." 

I added, "When the firemen did a sweep of the house, they found a chair had been wedged under your doorknob. Not even Mummy could deny the truth then." 

"Nor could I," Sherlock mused. "I believe I started editing my memories that very night. The next day, Eurus was gone, and I never asked after her, did I?" 

"Not a whisper. You had blotted her out completely." 

"And now I have the memories back," he said with some satisfaction. "The real ones, I mean. I still have to sort through the false ones." 

"So we're continuing with that now?" I asked. 

"Yes," Sherlock replied at the same time Dr. Watson answered, "No." 

"What?" My brother rounded on his flatmate. "We just use the same rules as before." 

" 'Before' meaning before you took up creative knot tying?" 

"Oh, for--" Sherlock huffed in exasperation. "That was a _side effect._ It's been handled. I'm neither suicidal nor fragile. But I need to finish this." 

Dr. Watson appeared unconvinced. "If I say stop..." 

"Instantly," Sherlock assured him, and with a reluctant sigh, John acquiesced. 

"So," I chimed in, "as I recall, we had all miraculously escaped the patience grenade." 

"Yes. We decided to investigate the situation at Sherrinford, and since it was likely security was compromised, we decided to do so surreptitiously. We--" 

I stopped him with an upraised hand. "I can tell you right now that everything from this point on will be confabulation. This would not happen. There are strict protocols in place in case of a security breach at Sherrinford and chief among them is that you, I, and any friends or family Eurus may select as targets would be instantly sequestered in a safe house." 

"You would delegate the investigation?" Sherlock asked incredulously. 

"I would have to." I leaned forward to catch his eye. "She sees patterns, remember. Were she to gain access to either of us, she could manipulate certain political elements with global consequences." 

"That's just you, with the political -- oh. You mean if she had me, she could manipulate you." 

"You think she would seek world domination?" John wondered. "That sounds like a James Bond villain." 

And there was the crux of the matter. "I don't know what she would seek. She is so dangerous because she is unpredictable. Nobody knows what Eurus wants." 

Sherlock stiffened suddenly, eyes widening in realisation. I was not prepared for the words that came out of his mouth: 

"I do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Brecksett" is, of course, Brexit. According to my research, the vote was taken in 2016, so when the Experience ended in 2015, it must have been very much in the news. 
> 
> It's not explicit in the episode, but my opinion is that if there was the slightest shadow of a doubt that Eurus had tried to kill Sherlock, Mummy would never have let her be taken away.
> 
> Four chapters in and utter silence ... (taps microphone) ... hello, is this thing working?


	5. Chapter 5

"I know what Eurus wants," Sherlock averred. "It's a running theme in our entire interaction with her. "Emotional context." She said it over and over. You'll see as events unfold." He took a moment to gather his thoughts, then continued: "In my Experience, we took a helicopter and commandeered a small fishing vessel..." 

Even Dr. Watson saw the hole in that logic. "Your brother could arrange a helicopter but not a boat?" 

Sherlock actually blushed. "I suspect a bit of wish fulfillment at this point. I even said it: Sherlock Holmes, the pirate." 

I stifled my laughter, he looked so discomfited. Instead, I asked, "How small a vessel? How many crew?" 

"Six," came the answer. 

"No." I shook my head. "The site for Sherrinford was selected specifically because it's so inaccessible. Frequent storms, dangerous currents, rocky shoals... only the largest fishing boats would dare venture there." 

Dr. Watson spoke up. "So Sherrinford's an island, like Alcatraz? I wasn't clear on that before; I thought it was just some maximum security prison." 

"It is an island," I confirmed, "but considerably more sophisticated than Alcatraz. It is both a prison and a psychiatric hospital for the most dangerous of the criminally insane." 

"Three cannibals," Sherlock chirped happily. 

"No cannibals," I contradicted. "Not since your poker opponent died recently." 

Dr. Watson opened his mouth, then shut it again, realising that story would take us rather far afield. Instead, he prompted, "So we commandeered a boat..." 

"Yes, and made landfall. Mycroft disguised himself as one of the fishermen and I disguised myself as one of the orderlies and we were taken to the governor's office. He handed over his key card so I could go check on Eurus." 

"Wait, wait," John objected. "This makes no sense. You made a big deal about how anyone who talks to this woman gets reprogrammed -- and then you set out to do exactly that?" 

"She's my sister," Sherlock said simply. "I had to see her." 

"For what it's worth," I interjected, "I believe Sherlock would do exactly that. He would be determined to see her, with or without our assistance, and damn the consequences." 

"I would," my brother agreed, "and in my Experience, I did. She was in a glass cage, playing her violin." 

"Cannibals and glass cages?" Dr. Watson mused. "Sherlock..." 

"I know, _Silence of the Lambs._ It seems movies make a larger impression on me than I thought." 

"It's also inaccurate," I explained. "There is a large picture window through which she interacts with staff and the door has a pass-through for meals and other sundries, but otherwise, her accommodations are more like a suite of rooms. Every inch of those rooms is under constant video surveillance, so there's no need for something so dehumanising." 

"Do the other criminals have suites?" John wondered. 

"Any kindness that can be granted, is. These criminals frequently feel that they are other than human. The intent is to help them feel human and to demonstrate that we see them as such." 

"Very enlightened," Watson admitted. 

"Well. It's easy to take an enlightened view when your sister is among the inmates." I returned my attention to Sherlock. "So she was playing her violin and...?" 

"She coaxed me closer and closer. Only too late did I realise the glass had been removed. She stunned me and to my dismay, ordered her guards to stash me in one of the empty cells nearby. A few minutes later, you two and the governor were also herded in. Undeniably, Eurus was running the asylum." 

I shuddered at that thought. "You mean she had suborned the governor and was pulling his strings?" 

"I mean," my brother replied, "she had remade the entire place in her image." 

"More confabulation," I pronounced. "Remember what I said about tiger training. To subjugate the entire staff, she would have to spend considerable time with each one individually." 

"So that couldn't happen," Sherlock mused. He cocked his head curiously. "Yet you proceeded with the laryngectomy." He was referring to the suggestion he'd made immediately after learning his Experience was the result of an experiment. 

"I did. So much of your intel was so accurate, that you foresaw her escaping, regardless of details... it seemed prudent." 

He nodded glumly and got up to pace a slow circle around the room. He ended up standing with his arms folded in front of the fire, staring into its depths. "What followed...: his voice caught. 

"Sherlock," John warned. 

"I know, I know," he whispered. _"In my Experience...I dreamt that..._ Eurus had set up a scenario for us to solve. Over the PA, we heard the voice of a frightened little girl. She was the only one awake on a large plane full of people. Everyone else was asleep, including the pilots, she said. Eurus used this scenario to force us through a series of tests. As we passed each one, we would be rewarded with snippets of conversation with the little girl to attempt to solve her dilemma -- a task which became more and more urgent as it became clear she was approaching a large city, probably London itself, and if the plane could not be landed or ditched, many people were going to die." 

"My God, that's diabolical," Dr. Watson breathed. "But how could she..." 

"Not important," Sherlock cut him off impatiently. "As Mycroft pointed out, all the details are confabulation at this point. What's important is the underlying truth: emotional context." With a deep sigh, he turned from the fire, settled in his chair, and proceeded to describe the tests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even granting Eurus her five-minute superpower, subjugating the staff of an entire facility? (Insert harsh buzzer sound here.) Sorry, Mofftiss, try again!
> 
> OK, done with soup and salad, next chapter's the main course.
> 
> Kudos and comments ease quarantine!


	6. Chapter 6

"I don't want to spend a lot of time on the specific tests." Sherlock frowned, pressing his hands together. "They're ... difficult, and I have a lot of work to do to process these. But for the sake of the underlying truth... 

"There was a gun in the cell. Eurus communicated with us via monitor. We could see a woman bound and gagged, who the governor identified as his wife. The condition for her to stay alive was I had to choose one of you to kill the governor." He cocked his head at me. "You refused. Said you didn't want blood on your hands." 

I snorted at that. "I routinely participate in decisions that put thousands of our soldiers in the front lines. I manipulate political events on a global scale, and sometimes people die. I have plenty of blood on my hands." 

"I know," he mused. "My subconscious must have idealised you." 

"Did I refuse?" John asked. 

"You tried to do it," Sherlock answered, "but you couldn't, even though the governor begged you to save his wife. Finally, he grabbed the gun and suicided." He glanced at me teasingly. "You retched." John and I both rolled our eyes at that; the suggestion was so out of character. "Unfortunately," my brother continued, "this did not fulfill Eurus' conditions, and she killed the woman. She remarked our morality had steered us wrong, leading to two deaths instead of one. 

"That test done, a sliding door opened on the side wall of the cell and we walked into another room. I know," he forestalled me, "that doesn't make sense. Especially in a prison, you would expect rooms to open into a common hallway, but we had a series of four that opened one into the other. In my dream logic, I dismissed it with, 'Oh, she's been redecorating,' but that type of reconstruction would take enormous resources." He shrugged ruefully. "Confabulation." 

"Rather," I agreed. "And yet, the test itself...I have to admit, Eurus would conduct that experiment exactly as described." 

Sherlock favoured this notion with a sardonic grin. "Well, then, tell me how the next one strikes you. I was given a murder to solve. There were three suspects, all brothers. Emotional context was provided when we could see through the window the three brothers in question, dangling on ropes suspended over the cliff." Seeing my frown, he added, "Oh, go ahead, brother mine. Tell me all the things wrong with this scenario." 

"If you'd rather not interrupt your narrative..." 

"I don't mind," he rasped. "I rather appreciate your pointing out all the ways this is impossible. It helps." 

"All right. Then: the cells are on the lower level. You could not exit a cell into a room with that kind of view. The brothers were dangling from ropes suspended, one assumes, from some type of crane. Eurus could hardly arrange to transport such heavy machinery inconspicuously. Then, to get the crane to the top of the cliff, she would have to build a road. No matter how egregious the security breach, that type of activity would be impossible to hide." 

"That helps," Sherlock said. "Well, the obvious implication was that the guilty party I designated would be dropped into the sea. However, when I pronounced the name, the other two brothers were dropped. We expressed outrage at this, and Eurus dropped the guilty one as well, then declared all the deaths felt the same." 

"I think I'm beginning to understand the emotional context question," Dr. Watson remarked. "In the first scenario, the morality of the shooter made no difference. In the second, the guilt or innocence of the condemned made no difference." 

I nodded along; it was an astute observation. "It's exactly the type of question Eurus would feel compelled to examine exhaustively." 

"No one could accuse her of not being thorough," Sherlock said with a brittle edge to his voice. "Another sliding door, another room. In this one..." he trailed off, staring blankly for a few seconds. Then he mentally shook himself and started over. "The test this time highlighted personal connexions..." He stopped again. After a moment, he drew a breath, opened his mouth... but then shut it again. Finally, he shook his head and sat back. "No. This one was directed specifically at me in a very personal way. I'm not going to talk about it." 

"How bad could it be?" John wondered. 

"Bad enough to provoke a meltdown," Sherlock said bleakly. 

I was flabbergasted to hear him say this. Sherlock's always been reticent about his autism, preferring to hide it behind a smokescreen of sociopathy. Dr. Watson seemed unsurprised, however. "You mean literally?" I probed. 

"Screaming, flailing, tearing things apart with my bare hands... it was bad." he shuddered visibly. Dr. Watson crossed to him, placing a grounding hand on his shoulder. I noted approvingly he used a firm, solid touch: when my brother's nerves are on edge like this, he finds light touches unbearable. 

"Time for a break," John declared in a tone which brooked no dissension. He repaired to the kitchen, and after a minute, Sherlock joined him. I could hear them putting together a tray of nibbles. Shortly, they returned, John carrying tea and Sherlock a tray bearing cheese and crackers, along with grapes and apple slices. 

"John's embarked on a campaign to make me eat better," my brother announced. "Whole grain crackers," he added with an eye roll. 

"If you insist on eating so little, what you do eat has to be high quality," Dr. Watson argued. "I banned chips for a month," he added, setting down the tea. "Left to his own devices, this guy would live off chips and sweets." 

"Four food groups," Sherlock quipped. "Chips, sweets, tea, and toast." 

"Good recipe for diabetes," John warned. 

Sherlock shrugged and helped himself to cheese and apples, pointedly spurning the whole grain. We also partook, and while we refreshed ourselves, Dr. Watson carefully kept the conversation light, coaxing Sherlock to regale us with his latest case. Finally, though, the dishes were cleared away, and my brother resumed his story. 

"The next test was the last, and the worst. Before I tell you, I need you to understand the kind of pressure I was under. Not only was each test wrenching, but there was the continuing danger to the little girl in the plane. Also, Eurus was playing with my sensory issues: flipping lights on and off, sirens, sound effects, even videos of Moriarty she claimed he'd recorded for her before he died, but they were always strangely apt. You'd think there'd be at least a small lag while she searched for the correct clip. But I digress." He drew a deep breath and visibly steeled himself. "The point is, by the time we got to this stage, my nerves were flayed raw. I compared it to vivisection. I need you to understand how utterly shattered I was, because the next room --" he paused to huff out a breathless laugh that stood the hairs on my neck on end-- "the next room was completely empty. Except for the gun I brought in with me, which contained exactly one bullet. Eurus said this was the elimination round: kill one, keep one." 

"Jesus!" John exclaimed, eyes wide with horror. 

Sherlock turned a searching gaze on me. "Tell me it's impossible, My. Tell me our sister could never conceive of such a thing." 

My poor little brother. Under that cold façade he projects, he has such a huge, tender heart. Naked on his face was his wish to redeem his sister somehow; to believe it wasn't as bad as all that. Alas, I found myself unable to grant his wish. 

"I'm sorry," I told him. "It seems exactly the type of thing she would do." 

"Sherlock," John called. "It never happened. What you're relating to us is just a crazy dream, and that's all it will ever be. You don't have to feel bad about anything you did in the dream." 

Sherlock frowned at him, then his mouth formed an "O" of realisation. "You think I shot you." 

"Of course you did; that's your brother." 

Said brother grinned and raised his eyebrows at me inquisitively. "And your guess?" 

Not a difficult deduction at all; the cynical amusement on his face could be masking only one thing. "Of course you shot me," I deadpanned. "I'm your brother." 

This riposte garnered a small but genuine laugh, and he sat back with a smug smile. "You're both wrong," he announced. "I actually made the same choice as the governor." 

"He suicided," John remembered, going quite pale. "Was that the end of the Experience then, you die--" 

"No," Sherlock answered. "I didn't succeed. I jammed the gun under my chin and gave myself a ten-second countdown. I never made it past four; we were shot with tranquiliser darts. Shot from very conveniently placed slots in the wall, I may add." 

I considered that scenario. I thought it unlikely my impulsive sibling would have given himself a ten-second countdown; he would have simply done it. And those conveniently placed slots -- ludicrous. 

"We were all tranquilised?" I asked. 

"Yes. And John and I woke up in--" he cocked his head at me, chuckling darkly. "--Musgrave."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I decided to skip the "I love you" thing. There's nothing egregious to unpack there; my only quibble is it knocks Molly's character arc backwards. She had stopped with the pining; now she's back at it. Sigh.
> 
> I decided in this verse, Sherlock saw how hiding his autism behind that ridiculous sociopathy diagnosis caused a lot of misunderstanding and decided to step up and own his actual nature. Not that he's going around trumpeting it, but he's no longer masking it.
> 
> Everyone agree with my take on the other tests? Let me know if you think I got something wrong!
> 
> Leave kudos and comments and the Force will be with you!


	7. Chapter 7

I had to bite back a sigh of exasperation. My brother's Experience with Eurus took him to the ruins of Musgrave, ruins which did not exist. The tale was getting more incoherent and ridiculous by the minute. I couldn't see much point in continuing this exercise: Sherlock had already recovered his true memories of Eurus; this business was just a nightmare. But, I remembered, it was a nightmare which laid down the same type of memory trace as real life, which was why it was so hard for him to dismiss. Perhaps telling the story through to the end would give him some closure. For that reason alone, I decided to continue. 

Belatedly, I realised what Sherlock had just said. "You and John were at Musgrave. Where was I?" 

"Still in Sherrinford. According to Lestrade later, she simply locked you into her old cell." 

John perked up his ears at that. "What, the one with no glass?" 

Sherlock snorted. "Well, some empty cell. Lestrade wouldn't know the difference." He got up to pace slowly, hands behind his back. "I woke up alone, sprawled on a table in a small room. This photo montage--" he indicated the array that had caught my eye when I first entered-- "was pasted to the wall in a single strip circling the room. Which begs the question, I suppose, of how Eurus got the photographs. They exactly match the family photos you showed me, although, as you can see, cropped strangely." 

"I was wondering what you were doing," John said. "He was up all night, scanning photos into the computer and fiddling with them." 

"It occurred to me I could match up the photos with the images in my dream, and as you can see, I was able to do so. Other than the photos and the table, the room was empty. I could hear the little girl on the plane, getting very frightened now because she could see the lights of a large city approaching and the plane was losing altitude. Then I heard you, John. You were chained in a well... and the well was filling with water." 

I frowned at this absurdity. "You realise, of course, that you can't fill a well." 

Dr. Watson blinked in surprise. "You can't?" 

"Of course not. Wells are dug down to the water table. To fill the well, you need to raise the level of the entire aquifer. And where would you get the water, save from the same aquifer? She'd be pulling it out at point A and pouring it back in at point B." 

"Huh." Sherlock folded himself back into his chair. "I didn't think of that at the time, of course. Between the plane and John in danger of drowning, I was in something of a panic. Well, it turns out the "room" I was in was a flimsy construct. A light push knocked over one wall, and I found myself on the grounds of Musgrave. I went in the house and via monitor Eurus told me I had to solve the song or she would drown another one of my pets." He glanced apologetically at Dr. Watson. "Her words, not mine. And that's when you found a child's bones in the well." 

"Victor," John realised. Recovering those sad remains had been Sherlock's vey first priority upon his awakening from his Experience. At the time, Dr. Watson had assumed the death was accidental, and we did not correct him. Now I saw horror rise in his eyes as he drew the inevitable conclusion. "Eurus knew he was there, then... she killed him?" 

"Yes." I could feel my heart twist at the devastation in my little brother's eyes. "I pleaded with Eurus: I couldn't solve the song. I had tried so, so hard to solve it, and come up with nothing. Then, inspiration struck. Long story short, I was able to correlate the words of the song with the numbers on the gravestones. The solution led me to Eurus' old room." He cocked his head. "Come to think of it, the house was remarkably clean and in good condition for a place that had burned down." He laughed shortly. "I think my unconscious mind must have been getting tired; a lot of the rest of this doesn't make sense. I found you and dropped a rope down to you; apparently your chains had disappeared. And -- how we communicated --" He shook his head wonderingly. "At Sherrinford, one could assume Eurus simply commandeered the PA system, but at Musgrave, I was wandering around outside with no earpiece, no phone, or device of any kind. I was just talking into the air and I could hear John and the little girl on the plane answer me with complete clarity." 

"Yeah, the little girl on the plane," John chimed in. "Did you save her?" 

"Ah." He smirked at me. "Mycroft's figured it out." 

Indeed I had. "It was Eurus all along. That's who you found when you went to her room." 

"Exactly. The plane was a metaphor for her mental state: all alone, high in the sky with no way to land. You could say I talked her down. She told me how to find John, and allowed herself to be taken back to Sherrinford. 

"I must have been waking up at that point, because the rest of my Experience is more a montage of impressions than concrete memories. I remember us restoring the flat and working on cases -- and I remember distinctly it was August 18, 2015 when I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up on April 13, 2010. So... that's all." He stifled a yawn and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "It's a lot of confabulation, I know; a lot of illogic and holes in the story -- but it still uncovered some basic truths: Sherrinford, Victor.. and Eurus' need for emotional context. You might be able to use that, Mycroft, to make her more... comfortable, more content." 

"I shall give it every consideration." I studied my brother. He seemed tired, but none the worse for wear. I asked, "Did it help you to recount the Experience?" 

He shrugged. "Still processing. But one thing stands out with clarity: _It could never happen that way._ It really was just a nightmare. With aspects of reality blended in, yes, but it did not happen and it will never happen." 

I nodded, content to leave it there. "And on that note, Sherlock, Dr. Watson, I bid you good night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John had the same reaction as me when Lestrade said "her old cell": Wait, no glass. Of course, it's easily explained, but it still made me perk my ears, so I included it.
> 
> I also never realised you can't fill a well, until a reader of a different fic pointed it out in a comment. Upon reflection...oh, yeah. One more for the Mofftiss sloppy research file.
> 
> I played that scene with Sherlock wandering around the gravestones twice, with my nose inches from the screen. He is definitely not wearing an earpiece or any kind of device. Really, guys, a coil behind the ear would have sufficed. File this one under lazy Mofftiss.
> 
> And like Sherlock, I say with considerable satisfaction: It could never happen that way! Just an epilogue left now.
> 
> Kudos and comments are the hot fudge on my sundae!


	8. Epilogue

About a week later, Sherlock reappeared on my doorstep. It was obvious what he wanted: 

"You want to see Eurus." 

"No. I _have_ to see Eurus." 

I had expected as much. "Does your psychiatrist agree this is a good idea?" 

"It's probably a perfectly dreadful idea. "He shrugged. "Doesn't matter; I still have to do it." 

I considered it. Bereft of her voice, much of the danger of interacting with Eurus was mitigated. I knew Sherlock would find some way to see her, with me or without me. The situation would be far more controlled if it were with me. 

"Very well," I acquiesced. "Be ready Saturday morning." He nodded, spun on his heel, and left. 

On Saturday, Sherlock met me at the heliport clutching, to my surprise, his violin case. He explained, "In my Experience, after she was back in Sherrinford, we would play together. She'd stopped talking, so that was how we communicated." 

"Could be useful," I allowed, and the helicopter took off, chopping its way into the leaden sky. 

We did not converse on the way, but as Sherrinford came into view, I saw my little brother lean forward, eyes alight with curiosity and a bit of trepidation. "Amazing," he breathed. "Exactly as I envisioned it." 

Upon landing, we repaired to the Governor's office, where a guard was assigned to escort Sherlock to Eurus. As soon as they were gone, I indicated the computer screen. "I want to monitor their conversation." 

"You don't wish to afford your brother his privacy, sir?" I favoured him with one of my more Antarctic glares, and he withered immediately. On the screen, the Governor and I watched as Sherlock approached. Eurus was reading in her armchair and she rose to greet her company, eyes widening as she recognised him. 

"Eurus. You know me?" She nodded enthusiastically. "Did Mycroft tell you I'd recovered my memories of you?" Another nod. "Did he tell you my memory was jogged by a precognitive vision?" The answer this time was an enigmatic smile. "Oh, I see. He didn't have to tell you that, did he? That was your formula Baskerville was testing, yeah?" Damn. I was hoping he wouldn't deduce that. "Did you know what it would do to me?" 

Eurus grabbed her tablet and started typing the words appearing on a large monitor that faced out her window. _"Hoped it would help you remember me. Did not anticipate other effects."_

I could not see Sherlock's face, but I could see a miniscule shake of his head. He wasn't buying it... wisely, I thought. He continued, "In the meantime, you got together with Moriarty and concocted a great game to engage me. What was your end game there, sister mine? Was is to destroy me or did you simply want to see how far I would go? I have your answer: all the way to hell and back. In my Experience, my war with Moriarty cost me so much..." He sighed and massaged his temples as if staving off a headache. "Those things didn't happen. But the memories feel real. You really hurt me, Eurus." 

Eurus' expression morphed into one of ineffable sadness and she placed her hand flat against the glass as if wishing to touch. Sherlock bent and removed the violin from its case, plucking the strings to tune it. 

"In my Experience, I played for you. You told me to 'play me.' " He lifted the instrument to his shoulder. _"Pour toi, ma soeur."_ He drew the bow across the strings, and... 

Words fail me. Around me, Sherlock usually employs the violin as an instrument of torture. I know, of course, that he is actually quite good, but this was beyond a virtuoso performance. It was not music that poured out of that violin; it was _him_ \-- his soul, if you will. There were swoops of intense emotion, but they were contained by the rational structure of the piece. I could hear clarity and joy; sadness and confusion; anger and betrayal; and finally, it ended on a note of indescribable yearning. I realised my mouth was hanging open and my chest heaving as I rode the tide of emotion that had washed over me. I composed myself quickly, but the Governor never noticed: he was weeping openly. 

Sherlock stayed still for a long moment, then he seemed to shake himself. He said, "In my Experience, I forgave you rather easily. In reality, though..." He shook his head. "I look at you, and I see Victor: cold, wet, trapped, desperate. So frightened, and all alone. What a miserable way to die." He bent to replace the violin in its case. "I want to forgive you, but I can't. I'll come by now and then, though. We can play violin and talk -- well, communicate." He fastened the clasps and bowed his head. "I don't know, Eurus. We may get there in time." 

He turned to leave, and over his shoulder, I could see that Eurus' face mirrored the exact look of devastation as his own, and on each face, a tear trickled down a cheek. I knew then, with as much clarity as if I had had a precognitive vision of my own: 

They would get there in time. 

  


-Fin-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there it is, all wrapped up with a pretty red bow.
> 
> Gonna justify something some of you might be wondering about, namely why did Eurus do both, the precognitive formula and the Great Game? Remember that in Do-Over, Done Over, Mycroft told Sherlock that most people given the formula had precognitive visions about very mundane matters, such as traffic accidents or unexpected guests. Eurus knew her brother was atypical, but she couldn't know just how differently he would react. So after three years of lukewarm results, she probably figured that the experiment was still worth doing, but she was going to come up with a different way of testing Sherlock. Probably Moriarty popped up on her radar at precisely the right time.
> 
>  _Pour tu, ma soeur_ : For you, my sister.
> 
> It may just reflect my own pettiness, but I couldn't get over how easily Sherlock forgave Eurus in TFP. SHE KILLED VICTOR!! She engineered the game with Moriarty that led to years of suffering for Sherlock and his friends. And she gets a hug and Sherlock wants to bring her home? I'd be sorely tempted to pitch her down that well.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story. I thought this would be the last one in this verse, but then people started to give me prompts. A story is already starting to take shape in my head. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are carrots to my plot bunnies!


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